What horror fan doesn’t love Halloween? It’s a holiday designed for us. Many of us gorge on horror movies and novels, and just bask in the spookiness autumn often brings.

This October, you have a chance to win a free copy of Mark Allan Gunnells’ Halloween-themed collection DARK TREATS. Released in a beautifully illustrated paperback, the book features five tales that celebrate All Hallow’s Eve.

“Halloween Returns to Bradbury” – Tired of the how soft and gimmicky his favorite holiday has become, Satan decides that a little intervention is needed.

“The Neighborhood that Halloween Forgot” – After decorating his new home for Halloween, a young man discovers that the holiday is not loved by all.

“My Last Halloween” – A boy on the cusp of adolescence learns a hard lesson when he sneaks out to trick-or-treat.

“Treats” – A mother and her young child fight for their lives when a mysterious “treat” reveals its frightful secret.

“Family Plot” – A young woman makes a chilling discovery at a local cemetery, leading her to an even more chilling discovery.

All you have to do to enter is comment with your favorite Halloween memory. Can be a childhood costume, a scary brush with the supernatural, your favorite horror movie to watch this time of year, etc. On October 15th, a name will be chosen at random and the book shipped to the winner. The book will be signed and can be personally inscribed if desired.

Honestly, the thing that always pops out for me when I think back on childhood Halloweens is playing poker with my brothers afterwards, where we’d make a circle on the living room floor and bet our candy until it was time to go to bed. It got to be pretty hard to earn your losses back, though, because the other players kept eating it!

That, and there was this one house we frequented that gave out cans of RC Cola instead of candy.

All I can remember is as kid no one took me around to trick or treat. so I had to walk. That isn’t bad, except I lived in the country. So lots of walking an I lived I the mountains. So really freaking cold. Then again I live in New Mexico, I suppose it is worse for those kid living in Montana. That isnt really a fond memory though.

My favorite memory is of dressing up my son Clovis when he was two. My wife got him a pumpkin outfit and dressed him up all cute. So I went out and bought him a satanic looing axe. He carried that axe with him to every house and when the people said “what a cute pumpkin?” I added “with an AXE!”

One of my favorite Halloween memories involved going to a Haunted Trail with a bunch of my high school friends. One of them was so scared he hung off my arm the whole time, and when we got to a tent featuring the Jeeper’s Creepers scarecrow, my friend yelled, “I saw that movie–you weren’t scary!” The dude followed us around for awhile glowering menacingly after that while my friend cowered. It was hilarious.

My favorite Halloween memory was when I 10. I was invited to my first Halloween party at a friends house. It was decorated awesome! I gorged myself on candy and had a blast. Ever since it has been my favorite holiday! And to this day I throw my own Halloween party every year!

I’m a big fan of ghost stories, so Halloween is always a good time for a spectral scare for me. One of the best Halloween shows I ever watched was a spoof reality TV ghost hunt called Ghostwatch. It was based loosely on the Enfield Poltergeist, but starred normal BBC presenters, including Sarah Greene, who I was used to seeing on Saturday morning kids’ TV.

Supposedly, there was a haunting going on in an ordinary suburban house in London and the BBC was investigating it all that night. Of course, events escalated during the evening, there were sightings in the house and weird things being reported all round the country by people phoning in to the show. It scared the crap out of me, I loved it! Only the BBC could get away with killing off a popular children’s TV presenter on UK national television in the name of Halloween :D.

My favorite Halloween memory is just being on that cusp of being too old to go trick or treating, and going any way with my best friend. And then going to Haunted Houses and enjoying Halloween to the fullest.

My favorite memory is wearing one of those plastic costumes, the mask with the rubber band and the trash bag-type top. I was a kid and loved Scooby Doo. The store didn’t have Scooby, only Scrappy. At the time I didn’t realize that Scrappy was annoying. Every house I went to I had to explain that I was Scrappy, not Scooby. It was very frustrating. Might have scarred me for life.

My favorite memories from childhood Halloweens are of the many homemade haunted houses that always popped up in our neighborhood every year. One time my fiend Joey freaked out so bad when a chainsaw wielding maniac jumped out of a closet, he tumbled down a rather steep and high flight of stairs. I was in front of him, so I took the brunt of his fall. If I hadn’t slowed his momentum, things might have ended very badly. As it turned out, he only had to deal with a lot of ribbing for years to come.

My favorite Halloween memory was when I was fifteen and my friends and I were walking the railroad tracks. We were across the street from a park high up on a hill when we saw the local tough guy and his friends driving real slow in a brand new GTO. Being Halloween we had dozens of eggs. Just when they got below us we unloaded on them. Did I mention the GTO was a convertible? When they stopped the car and got out to find out who did it – we nailed them again! Then they started running up the hill after us, and we missed getting caught by thirty feet or so, before we disappeared into the bushes and down the other side. That was one scary Halloween, yessireebob!

One of my funniest Halloween memories was when our daughter was maybe 4 or 5. Her costume was one of those ones that had batteries and inflated around the child. Anyways – she was a dalmation puppy – really cute looking. She HATED it…it looks stupid, I hate it, I wanna go home….. first house gets a cute compliment, second house says how adorable it looks….. Couldn’t keep up with her she was running so fast door to door! Loved the costume after all. Wanted to wear it again the year after – but by then it was too small.